‘Mr Mercedes by Stephen King’ Review

Stephen King is an author that will always be important to me, in truth he was the writer that finally caught my interest with picking up a book and reading.  Through the years I think I’ve read most of his book, there are some that I’ve yet to catch up on but I will.  Mr Mercedes is his latest novel and while it’s more of a thriller rather than horror it still feels like a King novel, written to the standard you come to expect from him.

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Mr Mercedes starts with a mass murder where a car is the weapon and a queue of people the victims.  The fact that a Mercedes, a car signifying wealth rams into a line of people searching for work could be symbolic or could just be a case of random bad luck for the victims, but the perpetrator of the crime is never found.  One of the detectives who worked the case, Bill Hodges now retired and looking for a purpose in life reads a letter from a man calling himself “Mr Mercedes.”  Goading Hodges to take his own life because of his failure to find the author of the letter unwittingly provides clues enough to trigger the old cop’s detective nature and the hunt is on.  The question is though in a deadly fishing game just who is the fish and who the fisherman?

Mr Mercedes is an old-fashioned murder mystery but with added Stephen King flair.  You can tell that King is going all out to move away from horror here but sometimes he just can’t help himself.  Looking into the background and actions of Mr Mercedes he gives the reader the horrifying history that led to the creation of a monster, although it’s obvious in many ways that it was always bubbling away on the surface, just needed a catalyst to make it come out of the shadows.

Bill Hodges is the character that grounds King’s style back to the murder mystery and detective story, a man feeling his life is at an end and ready to give it all up, that is until the letter arrives giving him something to cling on to.  It’s no surprise really that once he gets this inspiration things start to turn around for him and he has a purpose as well as new friendships and love interest.  This is the interesting aspect of Mr Mercedes in a way, once the killer comes out of the shadows to feed a narcissistic urge for recognition he turns himself into the fish raising his head above the water for the Hodges the fisherman to catch, though the killer is too arrogant to realise what he’s done.

Although Mr Mercedes does feel like a fresh take on the murder mystery novel it does follow the set guidelines that you expect from one, but can we expect anything less? There has to be an investigation, there has to be the narcissistic serial killer with a need for fame and the thrill of the kill and there has to be the inevitable final battle.  What I like about King’s approach with Mr Mercedes though is he uses his strengths to make this feel like a Stephen King story, and that is to focus on the characters.

The fact is we want Bill Hodges to win the day, we want Mr Mercedes to fail, and we are along for the ride until the inevitable climax.  Hodges in his investigation builds up a small team of friends that help him with the investigation and to some extent we grow to love them more than Hodges.  An example of this for me is a character who we meet late in the novel who is quirky and maybe just a little crazy but she actually steals most of the attention because of the life she brings to the pages.  This is the strength that Stephen King possesses, he creates magical characters that bring life to the pages of the novel and makes us fall for them.

Mr Mercedes is an interesting move for Stephen King, an author that we often see as horror and fantasy but is not afraid to extend his talents into more genres.  With interesting characters that pull you into the story it’s more about these people on the page and their actions rather than a clinical approach to solving a so-called cold case.  It can be argued that in story terms it may offer something a little too familiar that follows expected paths rigidly but in the end the well-crafted characters keep you turning the page and provide us with a novel with an undertone of pure King horror.

Mr Mercedes by Stephen King is out now.

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